Archive for July, 2009
Those Were The Days
It’s high time we shared our finds from the vintage magazines that we snagged for free at the Forest Hill Community Yard Sale. Towards the end of the day a nice woman had a slew of old House Beautiful glossies (we’re talking oooold, dating back 30-40 years to the early seventies) and she happily offered them up for free to avoid filling up her recycling bin. And we were just crazy enough to grab a hefty stack and lug them around for the rest of the sale. Well it’s a good thing we did because they were totally worth the effort. They were a veritable gold mine of eye candy and inspiration, with the added bonus of a good laugh on almost every page. Here are a few highlights…
We love this Neutrogena ad from nearly three decades ago. It gets right to the point.
We also liked stumbling upon ads for brand new items at the time that look super dated and old school now, like these amazing “state of the art” phones.
And what about this snazzy onesie, I mean flight suit, from Banana Republic?
This overly tan depiction of Vanna White thoroughly enjoying her Spring Air mattress in a satin suit (yes, there’s a cummerbund) also had us at hello.
And we couldn’t help but wonder who thought this Tony Soprano faux pink marble and gold jacuzzi was a good idea. Very klassy- yes, with a k. We especially appreciated that stylish updo on the lovely lady (no doubt to emphasize her upscale bathing experience).
We also liked how this faucet boasted that it was the first one that took it’s own temperature with a digital display on the top of the fixture. It may have also been the last.
This ad took us back to the days or removing the pea green toilet in our half bathroom at which point we asked aloud “when exactly were green toilets cool?” The answer: 1979 apparently.
We also loved how the last ten pages or so of each magazine was devoted to black and white ads that looked a lot like little newspaper blurbs full of strange products that nobody could possibly want, could they? I wonder how many Porta-Yoga devices they sold. I mean I can see how standing upside down would reverse the aging process, right? Just like walking backwards and putting your shirts on your legs and your pants on your arms would.
This “cordless massager” was certainly the most scandalizing black & white ad in the end of one of the oldest House Beautiful magazines (1975 to be exact). We don’t know what was more disturbing, the fact that our mothers and grandmothers probably read about it or the fact that it was available in four different lengths.
But don’t get us wrong. We didn’t spend the whole time tittering about the strange advertising of yore. We also found some fun and fabulous spaces that didn’t feel nearly as dated and odd, like this clean white room with pops of vibrant yellow.
And this lively and lovely turquoise room that could totally have been in Domino magazine last year (as opposed to House Beautiful twenty five years ago).
This groovy 70′s room is oh so Merimekko and fun, with giant graphic flowers on the bed and the vertical blinds. And check out that retro type treatment on the left page. It reminds us of Reading Rainbow (there’s another throwback for ya).
We love that this shot could have run in House Beautiful last month. And if it had I would have been looking up where that fabulous chair came from because I totally want it.
We also seriously swooned over this outdoor scene. You know we love white, natural materials, ottomans and dogs so this was pretty much the jackpot photo as far as we’re concerned. Isn’t it hard to believe it’s over 20 years old?
But there were also some pretty crazy spreads that weren’t quite as “fresh” looking. For example, we’d love this vibrant fabric on a pillow or a lampshade, but whose idea was it to cover the sofa and the two arm chairs nearby? Then they must have stepped back and said, hmm, it still needs something. How about draping some more of the same fabric over the round table between the sofa and the chair? Perfect.
Of course that’s nothing compared to this room that takes matchy-matchy to a whole new level. Yes the wallpaper matches the curtains which match the bedding which matches the table skirt. The fact that they stopped short of carrying it into the rug shows excellent restraint on their part.
Oh the fun we had with our timeworn magazines in our laps, marveling at the fact that everything on those pages was once fresh and current and oh so in style. Check out these Simmons sofa patterns and tell me that it’s easy to believe there was a time when they were in demand. The one on the top of the pyramid is so grunge-rock-plaid-shirt and the yellow floral is so grandma’s basement.
And what about this insanely busy “Congoleum” flooring? Will we someday find ourselves coveting this aesthetic once again? I hope not.
So thanks for the memories old stack of free yard sale magazines. You were enjoyed many years ago and equally appreciated just days ago when we flipped through each page, reveling in the fact that we were about negative eight years old when you went to press. We may have laughed at the old fashioned headlines and the strange infomercial-style ads at the back, but we’re still totally digging that egg chair on the cover. And white lattice, you’re still totally cool too.
So that about does it for our vintage magazine showcase. Any favorite scenes or ads of the bunch? Have any of you uncovered some old finds that had you in stitches? Do you think our iPod and Nike ads will someday look this crazy to future generations? What say you lovely readers?
Under My Umbrella-ella-ella-eh
Remember our fun playdate with Katie & Jeremy of All Bower Power back in May? Well, here’s a never-before-seen look at what happens when you put two female home bloggers in a room together. Within minutes they start ordering the boys around and before you know it you have a little mini makeover on your hands. For precisely zero dollars and zero cents.
But let’s back up. The room where the sprucing took place was actually Katie & Jeremy’s bedroom. Which is poetic since it’s the room that brought us together in the first place (we virtually met Katie back when she shared her bedroom makeover which was inspired by ours). We became fast friends and before we knew it we were spending a weekend in the guest bedroom, just steps away from the room that brought us together (happy sigh). Anyway, if you ask me the room already looked lovely when we arrived:
See? Gorge. But before I could even say “gor” Katie was a blur of motion, chatting about how she’d been meaning to move a few things around and how we should redecorate a bit together. Uh, where do I sign? So we called on the boys to lift a heavy dresser that was once in one corner of the room and place it in the other side of the space where a slipper chair used to be. Here they are demonstrating their masculinity. Then we just popped a mirror from the hallway and a vase on top to add height and bounce around even more light.
There, doesn’t that look nice? Now instead of entering into the side of the chair there’s a more open flow from the door into the room and even around the bed. But where would that slipper chair go? Why in the corner that previously housed the dresser of course. And we didn’t even need the boys for that task so they were dismissed to go watch some strange TV show about restaurants who serve giant pancakes and twenty pound burgers. We also added an old floor lamp Katie had laying around next to the chair, but it didn’t have a shade. Yet.
Then we decided to tackle that blank wall. We already borrowed a mirror from the hallway to put on top of the dresser so we were fresh out of things on hand to hang. Until I stumbled upon an old parasol tossed in a basket in Katie’s office. Katie explained they were actually left over from her wedding day and she had quite a few laying around. And then we both got the same glimmer in our eyes and decided to make a little 3-D art with it. Katie took me down to her basement (yes, people used to speculate that she might hold me captive there if I ever visited her but that was far from the actual course of events) and we got to work playing around with power tools. And you bet your buns we didn’t call the boys for help. When it comes to power tools we’re all about girl power:
As you can see, we cut the stem of the parasol off so it only protruded about three inches from the wall. And then we flipped it over to see if there would be a way to hang it from the opposite side so that super cool string pattern inside of the parasol could face out into the room. Lucky for us, peeling back the paper on the top nub of the parasol revealed a small hole which was perfect for slipping over a nail that we could hammer into the wall to hold it in place.
Here’s Katie getting her hang on. Oh and check out the light. Although we didn’t find a drum shade while we ran around readying the parasol for sculptural status in the room, we did see a blue wire basket candle holder (pictured a few photos up on the brown ottoman to the right of the chair) and placed it atop the floor lamp to create a cool wire “shade” that was just as graphic and linear as the parasol we hung behind it.
Then we did a quick pillow change for a bit more contrast with the tan chair (which happens to be the same Dolce Lounge Chair from Target that we have in our living room and den) and presto. A sweet little reading corner (or a place to toss clothes if you’re me). And all for no money and a bit of weird blogger x 2 creativity. Ah the memories.
Sure a parasol probably isn’t usually used as art and a metal candle holder isn’t typically thought of as a lamp shade substitute… but we had too much use-what-you-have fun not to share our odd little corner creation. And that my friends, is the magic of fostering internet relationships with strangers and then agreeing to a three day sleepover.
Wanna see me and Katie Bower in almost-3D? We whipped up a fun little table setting video that you can laugh at/watch right here. Let the mispronunication and potty humor begin!
Fab Freebie: Stick It
***This giveaway is no longer accepting entries***
After practically living and breathing home improvement and general house sprucing for the past three years (and blogging about it non-stop for nearly two) it sometimes feels like we’ve considered how to transform every nook and cranny of our space. But when this week’s giveaway sponsor contacted us, we suddenly realized there was one surface that we had overlooked…
Kodu Design makes custom graphic stickers of all sizes, and therefore practically all surfaces, but they specialize in designs for laptops and refrigerators (yes, refrigerators) so this week we’re giving away some pretty amazing instant art.
Our six lucky winners will be able to choose from the variety of graphics and colors shown on Kodu’s product page - from crisp stripes for your computer to an oversized fork for your fridge. These removable stickers (did your ears perk up, renters?) might just be the perfect way to breathe life into an aging machine or add some extra punch to your workspace or counterspace. Or you could go rogue and use the large fridge sticker for another big surface in your house, like this decal-turned-showstopping-backsplash. Ah-mazing.
- PRIZE: A graphic laptop decal (valued at $14) OR a side-by-side fridge decal (valued at $134) in any design on their site.
- TO ENTER: Comment either “STICK IT TO MY COMPUTER” or “STICK IT TO MY FRIDGE” depending on which prize you prefer and tell us…
- BONUS QUESTION: … how you’re currently bringing some personal flair to your computer or fridge? Maybe it’s a simple desktop wallpaper that makes your day? Or a photocollage on your fridge?
- GIVEAWAY CLOSED: Friday, July 24th at 8pm EST
- NUMBER OF WINNERS: Six lucky winners will score one of five laptop stickers and one refrigerator decal.
- PRIZE SHIPS: Globally- so everyone’s in on the fun this time.
- THE USUAL: One entry per e-mail address is permitted. The winner will be selected using random.org and announced on Saturday. Good luck!
Get more info on our freebies at our Giveaway FAQs page. Images courtesy of Kodu Design.
Easy Upgrade: Dish It
If you have marble or granite in your kitchen (and even if you don’t) keeping oil rings from seeping into your counters is definitely an important war to wage when it comes time to cook. But we’re too lazy for all that obsessive wiping and worrying, so we devised this super easy “system” to keep any oil that drips down the bottle well away from our counters once and for all:
Yes, it’s just a simple white square dish placed under our bottles, so even if we don’t thoroughly wipe them before setting them down, they’re sure never to drip on our beloved granite counters again. We like to keep things that we use so often right out on the counter at arm’s reach, so it’s really a nice solution to not only keep oil rings at bay, but also to help three disparate bottles look tied together and polished. Gotta love how one dish-turned-oil-bottle-tray = instant organization.
The best part is that it’s a dish we already had laying around so the cost of this easy upgrade was zero dollars and zero cents. So that’s our intro to a totally new category that we’re calling “Easy Upgrades.” Do you guys like the idea of fast and affordable ideas that you can implement in a snap? We’re all about DIYing something fabulous, but sometimes switching something out or slapping something down is all it takes to add function and beauty to your home. Do you have any of your own easy upgrades up your sleeves? We’d love to hear what types of quick fixes make your home a better place!
Tackled Together: The Garage
Ok, so maybe our messy garage wasn’t disastrous enough for you people, but we did discover several new species of spiders in there… and Sherry was “attacked” by a mouse in the cleaning process (it ran over her feet- yes, both of them- but her shrieking made it seem much more vicious). No matter the scale of our mess, it was very satisfying to spend an hour on Saturday morning just purging, sweeping and rearranging for a totally cleared out and organized end product. In case you were wondering what the process looked like, here’s a fun little time lapse video that we made of our big garage clean-up (you can watch it below from Vimeo or over here on YouTube):
As for how we shot the time lapse, it was just a simple set-up using our newly refurbished MacBook’s built-in iSight camera and a downloadable program called Gawker. Then, thanks to the slope of our driveway, we just put the computer on a box (of which we had plenty) and hit record. The whole thing looked like this:
But back to tackling the garage. It was pretty much just a simple cleaning effort this time around. We share your dreams of someday implementing a few stellar organization systems (nothing excites us like a wall of built in cabinetry and a tool-riddled peg board) but we realized during last year’s clean-up that we just don’t have enough stuff to warrant anything major yet. Maybe once we’ve got kids and have accumulated all sorts of frisbees, basketballs, and camping gear we’ll find ourselves excitedly installing an intricate shelving or cabinetry system. But for now we were just be happy to rid our bike seats of cobwebs and put an end to the cardboard box convention that took place where our car could have otherwise been living.
As you may have noticed on the video, we used the tried & true process of moving everything out and creating three groups: 1) trash, 2) recycle/donate and 3) keep. Then once the garage was empty we broke out the brooms to sweep out all the leaves and remove all the remaining cobwebs. Afterwards the “keep” stuff got moved back in (with a more orderly & intentional arrangement this time – garden tools with garden tools, paint with paint, etc). Storing like objects together always makes it easier to find things and creates zones like “paints & stains” (which are housed on the tall tiered shelf) and “rakes & shovels” (which now hang together in a row on wall hooks).
Hopefully we’ll keep the garage looking this way for a while, but then again, we probably said that last year so only time will tell. It seems that our weakness lies in the fact that we’re not always perfect about cleaning up the remnants of past projects. In fact, the clean-up process was a bit of a walk down memory lane. Just check out some of the “artifacts” that we rediscovered on Saturday morning:
- Two catering buckets that The Nest’s photo crew ordered (now used for carwashing)
- A cast iron sink from our old kitchen, which we finally Freecycled yesterday
- Painted pots from an R Home photoshoot, one of which I clumsily kicked over
- Boxes from our recent mattress delivery…
- … nesting in a box from our new patio lounge chairs
- An old metal firepit that got rusty and was replaced by our new DIY stone firepit
- Sticky scraps of balloon from our failed string lantern project for the front porch
But enough about our clean-up, we’re eager to hear more about YOUR weekend projects. We’ve already received a few great before and (much tidier) afters by email, so we’d love if everyone could share links to their pics in the comment section of this post so that we can all marvel at the weekend projects that were accomplished (photos can be uploaded to photo sharing sites like flickr, kodak and shuttefly and linked to for all to see). Thanks again for tackling this project with us! We’ll have to do it again sometime…
Time lapse video music courtesy of MoOt.
